Cheryl Roxanne Lewis
Cheryl Roxanne Lewis, who does indeed use all three parts of her name, was a character in the Mafia III roleplay. She is an anchorwoman for Aifam Cove ’s Channel 24 News. Roleplay Coming Channel 24 News Staff Station Technicians Assisting Cheryl and the unknown night news anchor with getting broadcasts to live television are Pratchett and Albert. They are extremely capable technicians, perhaps more so than is physically possible for a human to be. There is a very good reason for this - Pratchett and Albert are not human. They are in fact eldritch horror entities from another dimensional plane, brought to Aifam Cove’s time and space and bound, by magic and excessively notated legal contracts, into human-ish forms. They were meant to run technical equipment for the studio, which was trying, for whatever reason, to emulate a strange radio station somewhere in an unknown desert. When the radio station fell through, most of the interplanar creatures’ contracts and locational privileges became void and they were excised back to their home dimension. Pratchett and Albert’s contracts, however, being the first written by the station management, had different sets on their bound powers and their dimensional placement positions, and they did not want to be returned home trapped in the bodies and limitations they had to take on Aifam Cove’s dimension. Fortunately for them, Cheryl happened to be in search of technical workers for the burgeoning television studio in the same building, and she stepped in and offered to hire them. Cheryl inherited the contracts and the two technicians, with whom she’s become close friends. Or, as close as you can be to vacationing, Lovecraftian extradimensional beings. Pratchett As the station’s technician, Pratchett manages a great deal of work - switching between live feeds and pre-recorded material, assembling the video and audio for pre-recorded material, ensuring the microphones and cameras work properly, and often has to manage the tip line and pass news on to Cheryl. How exactly all this work is accomplished, some of it simultaneously and while leaving plenty of moments for Pratchett to have a leisurely conversation or enjoy a burger is something people never seem to remember to ask while in the same room. Being the first entity summoned by the radio station, Pratchett’s contract and bindings have a few glitches that later staffs’ did not posses. Most notably, Pratchett retained a somewhat more obvious unusual appearance; though the general outline is humanoid - a spiky-haired figure in a hooded sweatshirt - no matter what the placement of lit monitors, or lights in general, Pratchett is never visible as more than silhoutte and the sheen of eyes (and occasionally, teeth). The contract also forbids leaving the building - potentially not the office at all - but unlike the entities who came after, it did not remove Pratchett’s ability to speak, a privilege the technician takes full and often snarking advantage of. While Pratchett does seem to enjoy the work of managing the station technology, it could easily be argued that the creature’s actual passion is for food - the unhealthier, the better. One wishing to pry Pratchett is highly recommended to pick up doughnuts and coffee or burgers and soda on the way over. Though most of the time Pratchett is quick with slang and all smiles and casual teasing and nicknames, there are times when the technician grows more serious and shows a more supernatural and/or philosophical knowledge of the universe. Albert Cheryl’s cameraman, Albert, was much more successfully “hired” than Pratchett. The large man appears as human as any of Aifam’s Cove other human residents, and is allowed to move freely through the town. Albert’s quirks are more in his behavior. He is mute, but makes no effort to communicate by writing or signing, just occasional nods and shakes of his head or particular facial expressions. He eats when food is provided, but seems to have no real need for it, nor investment in how it tastes. Where exactly he goes when he isn’t filming or at the station is unclear, though he always seems to be around when needed. The weight of the camera never appears to strain, tire, or even bother him. This rather robotic interaction with the world is only ever broken when the station, its staff, or its guests are menaced in his presence, which causes him to show signs of frustration at the object of offense or, on milder occasions, subtly film the material if needed as evidence for later. Whether this is genuine care for the people around him, an obligation written into his contract, or simply a desire to keep his current contract-holder alive and in a mood to potentially unbind the contract someday is unclear. Ris Monaco Station intern Ris joined the news station at the end of the events of Mafia III, where she discovers an addiction to coffee, much to Pratchett’s consternation. Likely she is tasked with rather menial errands like fetching food and drinks, answering the tip line, preparing flyers, and embedding secret message to the resistance in the code of Channel 24’s website most days, but Pratchett would be quite interested in using someone with more mobility to perhaps investigate some of the rooms of abandoned equipment throughout the building. Ris is definitely not in danger of disappearing into forbidden dog parks, turning into a tree, or drinking orange juice of time-space displacement. I mean, how would she get into any of those situations anyway? Why would that be the case? That would be ridiculous. Relationships Pratchett For an extra-dimensional and imprisoned shadow-beast, Pratchett is a pretty good friend to Cheryl. Though an often merciless snarker, Pratch is also a very valuable ally in the field of reporting and technology - it’s no lie to say the show wouldn’t exist without the technician’s expert and supernatural technical skills. Nor would Cheryl’s camera-glasses, which she wears to see and hear ghosts with much less inconvenience than a handheld camera and earbuds. Pratchett is genuinely grateful for Cheryl’s rescue from the radio station, and appreciates that she treats both technicians pretty much the way she’d treat anyone else, despite knowing more or less exactly what they really area. Christopher Dylans She’s definitely not his mom, but the two have something of a surrogate parent-child relationship. Christopher, a blind teenager who had already survived the events of one mafia, was murdered at the funeral of the mafia’s first victim, and appeared as a ghost to some of the crowd - but not to Cheryl, who would only see him on the camera footage - on which Pratchett and Albert could see no ghost. Worried about the young murdered boy and curious to find out more about the oddities in her ability to see ghosts, Cheryl sought out and eventually found Christopher, as well as Ris Monaco and Cenna T Bloid. Christopher, who loved Cheryl’s voice and already associated it with listening to the news to calm down from night terrors, stuck with Cheryl for much of the rest of the events of the mafia’s takeover, eventually settling in to live with Cheryl permanently. Cheryl admires Christopher’s persistence and his good heart despite all he has been through and all the ugliness he has seen of people, but she worries as well about his poor self-esteem and his desire to try and make peace with the mafiosos, even his killers. There is also some contention over the resistance movement, which Cheryl is heavily involved in and whose potential for violence Christopher doesn’t approve of. All the same, Cheryl works as best she can to boost Christopher’s self-confidence, and in general provide him with as much as possible of the life among the living he ought to have had. Though Cheryl eventually gained some ability to feel Chris’s form, she has yet to yet to overcome her inability to see or hear ghosts without some kind of processing between them. She’s somewhat crafted, with Pratchett’s help, a way around this - a pair of glasses that work like camera lenses (though without the zooming features, of course), and earbuds attached to the glasses’ earpiece that are wired to an input speaker in the glasses’ frames. Travis Richem Travis Richem, the man who believes he’s the star of a reality television show that is constantly filming him, believes that all the citizens of the towns are extras and creates names and identities for them that are designed to cause drama in the nonexistent Travis Richem: In Your FACE. Cheryl has been assigned the moniker of Tiffany, and while she remains a reporter, Travis claims Cheryl is catty and manipulative, and got her co-anchor fired - which would have been rather hard to do as Cheryl never had a co-anchor. Travis also informs his fans that he and Tiffany are in a very odd, playing-hard-to-get sort of relationship, and so many of their conversations consist of Travis making supposedly-alluring comments and Cheryl being annoyed. Cheryl has come to physical blows with Travis twice - the first when he made a suggestive comment while Cheryl was trying to give a news report, and the second when, as a ghost, Travis made a suggestive comment about Christopher - Cheryl dropped a fistful of rock salt in Travis’ face for this remark, salt being very painful to ghosts. Fortunately Travis does not seem to be interested in forcing ‘Tiffany’ to actually participate in these exploits; he’s content to tell rather than show, which is just as well for him. Hermia Smith Cheryl despises Hermia, but cannot express this as much as she’d like to, what with Hermia being in the same building and in charge of the town. She does not, however, put on any pretense of friendliness toward the woman, either, and only advises Pratchett not to cause havoc with her belongings out of concern of retribution (though Pratchett, being an eldritch abomination, can probably handle himself). Hermia, for her part, avoids Cheryl, and in fact moved her office to the basement. Pratchett sometimes causes havoc with her belongings anyway. Piper Boudreaux Cheryl once considered Piper a potential future ally, especially when she heard the photographer had also had some unusual camera-related ghost phenomena, but - perhaps fortunately - Piper was murdered by the then-rival mafia before the two had a chance to talk. A different dice roll might have made them camera besites, but in this universe Piper is one of Christopher’s murderers, and that is something Cheryl can never forgive her for. Beatrix Devon Cheryl and Bea admittedly don’t know each other particularly well, but Cheryl attempted (poorly) to do an inside report on the alcohol smuggling in Aifam Cove, and did manage to correctly track the Stallion Inn as a possible source. However, she never found any solid enough evidence to fully report on it. There are now much more important things to worry about, though Cheryl occasionally takes up the case again to draw the mafiosos’ attention toward her snooping and away from something the resistance is doing. Sister Lucille Erata Cheryl never suspected the nun of being involved in the alcohol smuggling operation, but certainly Lucille was aware of Cheryl’s snooping. These days, however, alcohol smuggling is the least of either of their problems, and the two work together regularly for the resistance. Trivia *Cheryl, the news studio, station technicians, and Cheryl’s broadcasts are inspired by and make references to the podcast Welcome to Night Vale . ...Seriously, there are a lot of references. I may list them all out someday. Category:Mafia III characters Category:Albioners Category:Player characters